


Agent and Hawkeye's Epic Romance

by potentiality_26



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidental Relationship, Background Het, F/M, First Kiss, M/M, Mentions of Bucky/Steve, Slash, Tony Being Too Helpful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:11:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2582582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>‘Odd’ being such an expansive term, Tony had honestly expected Jarvis to produce an explanation for Barton’s behavior to the effect of, ‘He only likes to sleep in trees or on the roofs of very tall buildings’ instead of what he eventually found: paperwork.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Spousal paperwork, because apparently SHIELD had stock forms for handler/agent weddings, a notion that, frankly, horrified Tony.</em>
</p><p>Tony is just trying to build a supportive workplace.  Really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agent and Hawkeye's Epic Romance

**Author's Note:**

> So, I only recently saw [this prompt](http://cc-feelsmeme.livejournal.com/1635.html?thread=319075#t319075) from almost two years ago and had to write it. I have, accordingly, written it as thought it is almost two years ago still; it's roughly compliant with _Iron Man 3_ but none of the films that come after it, or _Agents of SHIELD_ \- it picks up from _The Avengers_ in the same way most fics written in that period did, with the Avengers coming together as team and Coulson being not so dead after all.

It started while Agent Coulson was dead.

Wait, no- scratch that. It remains a matter of some debate whether or not Agent (even being as he is one of the main reasons for Coulson’s undying happiness, Tony can’t see a way clear to calling him _Phil_ \- at least, not regularly) was ever actually dead. But the main thing is that they all _thought_ he was dead, including Barton, and that was the problem.

Okay, scratch that again. It started before Coulson being dead. It started before Tony even met Coulson or Fury or anybody else (but not before he met Pepper; he always knew Pepper- she was there before the Big Bang). Back then, there was no Iron Man, just Tony Stark whose company made weapons and wasn’t entirely perfect.  

It started with the complaints down in R&D about- okay, so Tony didn’t really know what the complaints down in R&D were about. He had Pepper for stuff like that. She brought in a whole army of experts on harassment in the workplace and discrimination in the workplace and every other –ment and –ation a workplace might have, and then a bunch of therapists to fill in the gaps. It was bandied about, by the experts and the therapists and by Stark Industries employees unnamed, that Tony- though maybe technically not part of the problem- wasn’t exactly part of the solution, either. It was even implied that he was maybe a teensy bit… insensitive.

But Tony stepped in and implemented to new regulations like a boss, and by the end of the month they were having a little party for him and his safe, supportive workplace. There were balloons and streamers. And Tony went back to his lab that day and he felt pretty good.

So maybe he came away thinking- for once- that the experts weren’t so bad. Maybe he came away thinking there was something to this sensitivity thing.

 _That_ was how it started.

*   *   *

Now, fast forward to after the Battle of New York and the shawarma and everything. After he promised faithfully to build Pepper a tower of her very own but reminded her that this one now had a big old A on it, and that was karma or kismet or whatever, Tony dubbed the place Avengers Tower. He might not have been much of a team player, but he had _plans_. It wasn’t long before there was an elaborate communal kitchen and an unparalleled gym/rec room with a gigantic shooting range for Barton and Romanov, and a floor that was just a lab for him and Banner, and a couple free floors for when he figured out what Thor and Rogers liked (arcades styled after the middle ages and the forties respectively? Tony filed that one away for later). And everyone had a floor of their very own to live on, too.

Of course, Avengers Tower stood more or less empty for a while.

For a while, Thor was back in Asgard, Romanov was running missions, and Banner and Rogers and Barton were off doing whatever it was they did. Tony did move there, because at one point it turned out that Tony no longer had a house, but an entire tower was big even for him and there were only so many maintenance bots he could build with Jarvis before he started to go a little crazy.

And then one day Bruce Banner turned up on the doorstep with what appeared to be all of his possessions in a bag over his shoulder. “Room at the inn?” he asked mildly.

Tony- in the midst of squinting to determine if Banner was real- jumped. “Yeah,” he said, letting him in. “Where you been?”

“Here in the city,” Banner replied, rolling his eyes.  

“What?”

“A lot of people needed help after what happened. Battle of New York, remember?”

“Right.” Tony wondered if he was being guilted somehow.

Banner sighed. “You did your bit, I know that. When you throw money at an issue you don’t exactly mess around. I just prefer to be there myself. Takes my mind off things, and nobody exactly recognizes me from the footage. Anyway, I’ve been keeping my head down. Maybe you could try it someday.”

“Right.” For a guy who could turn into a green rage monster at any moment, Dr. Banner was actually very good at blending into the scenery. “Bored yet?”

“Nope. I’m here for the relaxation of your presence.” Banner’s eyes smiled.

Tony tried to process that, and eventually simply said, “Let me give you the ground tour.”

*   *   *

After Banner- Bruce, by that time (they’d made bots together, it put them on a first name basis)- came Agent Romanov. She appeared with even less fanfare than Bruce. Tony just walked into the living room one day and found her curled up on the couch. The fact that she was watching Ace of Cakes made her no less terrifying and Tony nearly jumped out of his skin. She smiled like a shark. “Stark.”

“Romanov.” He eyed her. “I take it you’ve settled in.” She nodded once and went back to watching TV.

Tony was reasonably sure that she was here less for team bonding and Tony’s truly awesome amenities than because someone on high had ordered to her to keep an eye on Bruce and Tony in case they built something that might destroy the world one day- but Tony liked to think she felt she could let her hair down in the place- for a given value of the term.

He was about to leave her to it when Romanov- eyes on the screen- muttered, “Clint would love this shit.” Presumably, she meant Ace of Cakes, but it still gave Tony ideas.

At the moment, he had three out of six. He could definitely do better.

*   *   *

“So. Cap.” Tony sidled up to Rogers- Steve.  He'd call him Steve. 

“You want me to come live in your tower, don't you?”

Tony spread arms and smiled his most benevolent smile. “For the good of the team, Steve- and from thence the world.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay,” he said.

That was easier than Tony expected, but maybe the Brooklyn apartment of Steve’s dreams had turned out to be lonely or complicated or whatever. Like Bruce- like Natasha, come to that- Steve didn’t have much in the way of possessions, and he was firmly ensconced the following day.

*   *   *

Thor returned to Midgard with all the drama the other Avengers’ appearances had lacked. He dropped right out of the sky one day. He was the first one Tony had to actually verbally offer a place in the tower to. He was also the first one to clap Tony on the shoulder (hard enough to set Tony’s fillings ringing) and say, “You are a most thoughtful comrade and host, Man of Iron,”- but as far as Tony was concerned that was semantics, because Bruce and Natasha and Steve said it in their own ways too.

Tony started leaving the shopping list he gave one of his people every few days up on the refrigerator and one by one they started adding things- the ingredients for curry, assorted fruits and vegetables, vodka, mead.

One day, Pepper walked in on Tony just smiling at that list.

She had that kind of happy and kind of sad look on her face- the one she was so very good at- when she said, “I guess I never realized how happy playing house was going to make you.” Tony didn’t know what to say to that, but Pepper didn’t seem to expect anything.

Later, Tony scoffed a little about it, but Pepper was- as usual- not wrong, which was another part of why what happened happened. None of them were exactly flush in family; why not change that together?

But though Tony proceeded to wait as patiently as he was able, Barton never did follow easily along behind.

In fact, he only came out of the woodwork again when there was a crisis. He made dry quips and hit everything he aimed at, but when Tony looked him in the eye he didn’t see much more in Barton’s eyes than he had while the archer was under Loki’s control. And Clint Barton was no more flush in home and family than the rest of them, but all he did when Tony mentioned the tower was say, “See you around, Stark,” and wave once as he turned away.

It was true that maybe- given that he’d only joined the Avengers to fix a mess he’d been part of making in the first place- Barton didn’t really consider himself part of the team as such (and yes, that little snippet of psychology was from Pepper, but Tony would have gotten there eventually) but Tony thought there was more to it than that. Because being sensitive had paid off in the past, Tony figured he’d find a way to help the guy out if he could. So, he put Jarvis on the job.

“What am I looking for, sir?”

“I don’t know.” This fact was rather frustrating to Tony, given how much he disliked not knowing things. “Anything… odd?”

‘Odd’ being such an expansive term, Tony had honestly expected Jarvis to produce an explanation for Barton’s behavior to the effect of, ‘He only likes to sleep in trees or on the roofs of very tall buildings’ instead of what he eventually found: paperwork.

Spousal paperwork, because apparently SHIELD had stock forms for handler/agent weddings, a notion that, frankly, horrified Tony. And he remembered Romanov taking Barton aside after shawarma and gripping his shoulder and saying something soft and urgent. And he remembered watching Barton fall apart and not knowing what _that_ was about.      

And looking at those forms, Tony felt this sort of aching next to his arc reactor that he didn’t like at all.

It turned out sensitivity sucked.

*   *   *

Later, when Tony was still trying to figure out what the deal with Agent and Hawkeye’s epic romance was- because apparently sensitivity and masochism went hand in hand- it also turned out that rumors of Agent’s demise may have been somewhat exaggerated.

Tony was pleased to find that none of the other Avengers were willing to leave him in SHIELD’s clutches any longer than Tony was. He’d set up a floor- thus far unused- for Barton long ago, but Tony set one up for Coulson too- for practicality’s sake. It would be good for Agent to have a place stay if he and Barton ever had a fight- things could get really awkward if one of them needed to stay on Steve’s couch or something, and why let it even be a possibility when he had a whole damned tower at his disposal? Also, it would be handy for a Agent to have a place to keep his Captain America sheets and shit, because Barton wouldn’t want to sleep on _those_. Tony knew that those rooms and that floor wouldn’t get any real use, of course, but he was thinking ahead. He thought Agent would approve.

And, indeed, the very day Coulson moved into Avengers tower, Barton followed along behind with a bag slung over his shoulder and a lost expression on his face.

And so the band was back together and then some. Tony patted himself on the back and made modifications to Pepper’s espresso machines as a thank you for her support in what had been a difficult time. All was well.

*   *   *

Except for how it actually wasn’t well at all.      

Neither Barton nor Coulson appeared to have gotten the message. They moved right into their respective floors and that was apparently that. Coulson was the voice in all of their ears, coordinating them from the ground, and beyond the way everything about Barton seemed to have loosened, relaxed, ever since they found out Agent was alive, nothing about either of them suggested that they were more than two people who worked really well together. No footsie under the table during briefings, no pet names over the comms, no nothing. Probably Agent snuck up to Barton’s floor in the middle of night (Tony wasn’t going to have Jarvis check- he did understand about boundaries, sometimes) and maybe that was enough for him, but Tony didn’t like it.

He wondered if there wasn’t maybe too much… team going on. Or if maybe Barton was still mad about his husband letting him think he was dead for a while. Or if maybe there was some other trouble in paradise that Tony didn’t know about (to do with the cellist Agent had made mention of, perhaps- and what was the deal with that?). Whatever it was, they were going to need some private time to sort out their differences.

And if they wouldn’t take it on their own, Tony was going to give it to them.    

*   *   *

“God, Tony,” Pepper huffed as she supervised him disabling the subroutines Jarvis had warned her about- like a _traitor_ \- that were designed to- should they ever step into a closet together- lock them in until they sorted out their differences. Hunched over his desk, Bruce laughed silently behind his hand. “That is _not_ how adults 'sort out their differences.'”

But she didn’t tell him to stop altogether, and she had a fondness for Agent that for once might work in his favor, so Tony asked, “How, then?”

“Well…” Pepper looked thoughtful. “It _is_ hard to get some time alone up here, you aren’t wrong about that. A nice dinner out might be a good idea.”

Because Tony is a genius, he picked up that this hint was not solely in reference to the love lives of Agent and Hawkeye, and filed it away for later. But he still had to say, “But what if they need to- you know- fight it out or something?”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Do they seem like they want to slug each other?”

“No,” Tony admitted. “They just seem like they aren’t having all the hot monkey sex one would expect them to be having. But this _is_ Agent we’re talking about.” Agent’s ‘I can and will kill you with this paperweight if you don’t shut up now,’ face was virtually indistinguishable from his, ‘What a clever idea, Tony, tell me more’ face. Tony was really only still alive because he was fast.

“He’s not from a different species,” Pepper sighed, which might have been nonsense. Tony totally understood Thor better than Coulson. “They probably just need to get back into the groove of things, okay? Rediscover the passion.”

*   *   *

Tony wrote ‘get back into the groove of things’ and ‘rediscover the passion’ down in case he forgot. He realized that Pepper was making Barton and Coulson sound like a married couple who had just had kids, and hadn’t worked out how to do parenty things _and_ couply things yet. The analogy was actually quite apt, and in the name of all the Mom and Dad jokes he was going to be able to make one day, Tony pulled an all-nighter and put together a plan.

The plan went thusly:

1\. Make a reservation for two people at one of the best restaurants in the city for Friday night at seven.

2\. Make another reservation at a different restaurant for seven thirty.

3\. Have Pepper invite Barton to a friendly ‘getting to know you’ dinner.

4\. Invite Agent to a belated ‘yay, I’m glad you’re not dead’ dinner.

5\. Have Pepper convince Agent to go to said dinner.

6\. With Agent in tow, coincidentally run into Pepper and Barton in front of the restaurant with the reservation for seven.

7\. Discover, in tandem with Pepper, that a crisis at Stark Industries requires immediate attention.

8\. Leave Barton and Coulson to enjoy dinner together- on Tony- at the reserved table.

9\. Take Pepper to the other restaurant.

10\. Enjoy own romantic dinner.

It was basically a perfect plan, and one in which Tony took great pleasure. In just ten easy steps, everyone would come away happy.

*   *   *

“So… Freddy, was it?”

“Frankie, sir.”

“Right. Report!” Freddy was the bus boy Tony had paid to watch Barton and Coulson over the course of their dinner. There were probably cameras Tony could have hacked to watch it himself, but that tended to make the civilians nervous, and nervous civilians made Pepper mad, and mad Pepper wasn’t exactly soothing to be around. “How did they look? Did they look awkward?”

“A little awkward at first, maybe, but then the one who looked a little like Hawkeye made the accountant-looking one smile, and after that they talked… more naturally.”  

“Happily?”

“I’d say so, yes.” The bus boy was frowning a little.

“And would you say they looked like a couple?”

Freddy nodded so hard Tony thought he heard the kid’s teeth rattle in his head, and he looked a little green around the gills besides. “They shared a cheese plate and tasted each other’s desserts,” he informed Tony.

Tony rubbed his hands together. Yep, Agent and Hawkeye had it bad.

“They looked into each other’s eyes a lot.”

Yes indeed.

“Can I go now?”

“Yes, all right, Freddy.”

“Frankie.”

Tony gave the kid what he’d promised- plus a tip for bringing such good news. After that, Tony gave himself a pat on the back. Operation Friday Night had been a great success. Agent and Hawkeye had their groove back.

*   *   *

Or so Tony thought- until, come Monday, Coulson and Barton were still on separate floors, and they were both as coolly professional as ever.    

Tony took a moment to reassess his assumptions. Maybe it had been a little ridiculous to imagine Agent and Hawkeye playing footsie under the table at briefings. Barton was always going to be Barton to Coulson on the job, and Coulson was always going to be Sir. They acted professional at work because they _were_ professionals.

But Avengers Tower was supposed to be home, and they lived there, didn’t they? There was no reason for them not to cuddle during movie night or have a meal alone together a few times a week. It wasn’t that they weren’t couply- the bus boy had assured Tony that they were, after all- it was that they didn’t want to be couply in the tower. Tony did some more digging and found that both Barton and Hawkeye had practically lived on the SHIELD base before they moved to Avengers Tower. Probably the line between their private life and their work life- always a little blurred- was still hard to negotiate. They needed to see that off the clock, in the tower, they didn’t have to be professionals anymore.

Pepper was right- alone time was rare in Avengers tower. Sure, when Barton needed to be by himself for a while he could huddle in a vent or build a nest in the A or whatever, but Tony had tried out those vents one time, and there was hardly room for one up there, let alone a tryst. For Coulson, hanging out in the tower probably felt so much like work he didn’t know how to switch from one to the other. Tony had a couple of ideas for how to help him.

The kitchen was normally a zoo in the mornings- and also the afternoons, evenings, and nights, but whatever- but he blocked off time at least once a week that would be Agent and Hawkeye’s Particular Breakfast Time. He set up a camera outside the kitchen and got a recording of Coulson stopping short and squinting at the brand new schedule. “Why…”

“Don’t question it,” Barton said, eyes glinting. He tugged Coulson into the kitchen, and they came back out a while later with breakfast. They didn’t feed that to each other or anything, but they sat very close together, elbows touching, and talked quietly as they ate. Barton made Agent laugh three separate times, and Tony considered Agent and Hawkeye’s Particular Breakfast time a success.

He organized it so Barton and Coulson were always next to each other at team dinners and team movie nights. Tony considered team movie nights a particular success, because sometimes Thor would bring Jane and Jane would be bring Darcy, and though Tony’s couches were spacious that was a bit much, and Barton would end up basically in Agent’s lap. (Darcy would end up basically in Bruce’s lap, too, but Tony preferred not to examine that too closely.)

He also made a few team activities not mandatory. Making a team activity not mandatory often reduced it to just him, Steve and Thor, with the others just sort of drifting in and out depending on what they were doing. Coulson mainly did paperwork when he wasn’t doing team activities or saving the world, so Tony almost checked the failure column for that one on the making-the-tower-more-like-home front, but then Barton seemed to like to hang around Coulson when he was doing paperwork. One time Coulson was working on the couch on his floor, and Barton was napping with his feet in Coulson’s lap, so that was a success too.

Watching the recording, Tony whooped, and then startled. He looked around to see if Bruce had noticed, but for once Bruce wasn’t in the lab with him. He turned on the monitors and went back to tinkering with his bot like nothing had happened.

“Sir,” Jarvis remarked. “Do you ever wonder if perhaps you are too concerned with the personal lives of your fellow Avengers?”

“No,” Tony said, needing only a moment to consider. “No, I don’t.”

To prove it, Tony didn’t check if Coulson and Barton were making out an hour later.

*   *   *

It was nearly a week into his “project” that Tony started to suspect that it wasn’t because they considered themselves still at work that Agent and Hawkeye didn’t act like a couple in front of the team. It was because of the team.

And thus Operation The-Avengers-Put-the-A-In-Ally was born.

He subtly left magazine articles about celebrities coming out all over the tower, hoping to build a foundation for his hints that having an “Out” Avenger might be just what the world needed for this next phase in the fight for equal rights.

Tony thought that one might have been a wash, though, because the only one who ever looked at the magazines or seemed to notice his hints was Steve.  

Steve, Tony thought, might turn out to be the key to the whole thing.

Coulson was crazy about Captain America, and Steve- as far as Tony could tell- was also a fan of Coulson. After Barton and maybe Romanov, Steve had taken Coulson’s death the hardest- which Tony thought was weird because after Barton and Romanov _he_ knew Agent best. Now that Coulson was back with them, Steve hung out with Coulson a lot- more than Barton did, frankly. He made Coulson brand new Avengers era trading cards, and confided his worries about how he fit into these new times.

It seemed to Tony that Coulson might just be keeping his marriage a secret because of Captain “Perfect” America. Because Steve, coming from when he did and being the way he was, might not get it. Tony, being Tony, had stopped hiding things because he didn’t think people would understand a long time ago, but in this case he sort of got it. He’d spent most of his childhood resenting Captain America for monopolizing his father’s attention as he had, even dead- and it had taken him a long time to get to see Steve underneath the red, white and blue and understand that it wasn’t his fault or Tony’s fault, it had just happened. The point being that if Captain America had been his hero, it would have been even harder for Tony to see that Steve was just a guy- a guy with an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong, sure, but a guy nevertheless. Captain America was Coulson’s hero as a kid, and even though Coulson mainly didn’t seem to care what people thought either, he might not be able to deal with his hero disapproving of his life choices.

Tony had a new target.    

*   *   *

“So,” Tony said. “Steve.”

“Uh-oh,” Steve said. “What now?” He was sitting on one of the balconies, sketching the skyline. “If it’s team battery making again…”

“Wasn’t that fun, though?” Tony knew that Steve felt obligated to do all the team activities as a show of solidarity, and he liked making them things that the super solider had no idea how to do. “No. No, it’s not about that.”

“Thank God.” It didn’t take long for Steve to get suspicious again, though. “What, then?”

“I want to talk to you about…”

“About?”

“Something.”

“Thanks for clearing that up, Tony,” Steve said and clapped Tony on the shoulder. Maybe Agent wouldn’t be so hung up on Captain America if he knew what a sarcastic bastard he could be. Tony thought about retreating and considering a new plan of attack. But then Steve softened, as Steve was wont to do, and he looked all encouraging. “What is it, Tony?”

“It’s about… something else that changed while you were… sleeping, right? See, sometimes- I’m gonna screw this up, aren’t I?- when two people love each other… they aren’t always a man and a woman, right?”

There was a beat of silence, then: “Well, yeah,” Steve said. “You know homosexuality isn’t like the internet, right? It was around before I was.”

“I know that,” Tony snapped. “What I mean is, that’s okay. I mean, there are still some Stone Age jerks who don’t think so, but it’s changing. I know it wasn’t that way when you were growing up, and I just need to know that you’re not a Stone Age jerk, because-”

“Tony, are you trying to come out to me?”

“No! I mean- okay, now we’re on the subject I do swing both ways on occasion, but I’m with Pepper and this isn’t about me.”

“Okay…” Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to get me to come out to you? That’s what I thought at first when you were leaving those magazines all over the tower.”

“No, this is about Agent and Hawkeye!”

“Oh,” Steve said. “Good. I was hoping so, especially since you gave them Particular Breakfast Time.”

Tony blinked, and processed the conversation up to that moment. “Wait, fuck, rewind.”

“Language, Tony.”

“Sorry, Grandma,” Tony said as automatically as it sounded like Steve had corrected him. He got himself back on track. “What do you have to come out about?” he demanded.

“I’ve swung both ways on occasion, too. Well, I swung Bucky’s way.”

“Does that mean you _aren’t_ a virgin?” Tony’s world was realigning itself, and it was horrible.

Steve rolled his eyes and didn’t answer.

Tony gave up eventually. “Look, could you just tell Agent that Captain America doesn’t care who he fu- loves or something? That you’re okay with him and Barton?”

For a moment, Steve regarded Tony silently. “I wouldn’t say I’m entirely okay with it.”

Tony eyed the other man and tried to work out what he was missing.

“Loving someone you have to send into danger is a slippery slope. I should know.” Steve’s voice got tight, and he stared off into the distance for a moment, then shook himself. “But Phil’s judgment has always been impeccable thus far. I trust him to do what’s best, even if it’s hard.”

“Um. Could you tell him _that_ , then?”

As far as Tony could tell, Steve proceeded to do exactly that, but it was possible that- at that point- the original reasoning behind the words had gotten lost. Steve got himself a rainbow pin, though, so Tony figured they’d done their best.

*   *   *

Steve made one good point, though: Tony trusted Agent too- it would never have occurred to him not to- but it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that one or both of them was worried that the team wouldn’t think them capable of being objective if they loved each other. Maybe they were keeping this quiet not because of the gay thing, but because of the fellow team members thing.

Which was where Thor came in.

*   *   *

“Indeed, Man of Iron,” Thor boomed. “I am most pleased to hear that the Son of Coul and Hawkeye share the warrior's bond.” He clapped Tony on the shoulder, which was easier to cope with when he was in his suit, and he wasn’t when he cornered Thor in the living room.

“Right," Tony picked up.  "Soldiers who are... lovers.  That’s a thing you have on Asgard.”

“Is it not so common on Midgard?”

“No,” Tony said. “It’s not.” Thor looked sad, and Tony was so never telling him about DADT. “Some people of Midgard feel that two people who go into battle together shouldn’t be… involved.”

Thor continued to look sad, which always made Tony feel like he’d kicked a puppy. A big golden haired puppy. “Why?” he asked.

“Because it makes them less effective.”

“I do not think that can be so,” Thor said. “Never have I known braver warriors than those pairs who served under my command. And the Son of Coul and Hawkeye strike me so as well.”

“I don’t think it’s so either,” Tony assured him quickly. It occurred to Tony that he might have become just a little too invested in all this, but at this point he couldn’t just stop. “I want to make sure they know that- that we’d never think less of them.”

Thor took Barton and Coulson out drinking, which- if nothing else- gave them a lot of paperwork to cuddle over. Tony had even less idea of what Thor had said to them than he had of what Steve did, and he honestly wasn’t sure if he liked it that way or not- which was weird, because Tony always knew how he felt about things.

The main takeaway message, though, was that asking for the help of his fellow Avengers could be… problematic. It was because he’d already concluded that this great work was best done alone that he didn’t enlist Bruce’s help to synthesize an airborne aphrodisiac so they’d out themselves or ask Natasha what spies did to unwind that didn’t involve shooting anyone- and not because Bruce was avoiding him and Natasha might try to kill him. Honestly.

Tony was going to point blank tell them- all right, tell Barton, he wasn’t crazy- that he supported them and that everyone else did, too.

*   *   *

“Wait,” Barton said, swallowing his bite of cereal. “You think me and Phil are married?”

“You _are_ married,” Tony reminded him from inside the kitchen. “I’ve seen the paperwork.”

“Yeah,” Barton agreed. “But not really.” He took another bite and chewed, thoughtfully. “That actually explains a lot about the last few weeks.” He chewed some more. “Phil was my handler,” he told Tony, like that explained everything. “He was the only who knew everything about my missions, you know. And one time, there was gonna be a… trial… thing. So. We got married. That’s all there is to it, Stark. Seriously.”

“Are you telling me that you got married for the legal right to spousal privilege?”

“Yeah. It’s actually not all that unusual at SHIELD,” Barton said, and to Tony the words had the worn quality of well-used worry beads. “You’ll never believe who Agent Hill is married to.”

Tony thought about that one. “Uh-uh,” he said when he was done. “Liar,” he added for good measure.

“No, really, she-”

“I don’t mean about Agent Hill!” Tony snapped, and lapsed into angry silence. In the beginning, he might have believed that Agent was exactly the kind of robotic son of a bitch to marry a guy for stone-cold agenty reasons alone, and that Barton was exactly the kind of anti-social weirdo to roll with it, because who needs a real relationship anyway? But then, no, he wouldn’t have believed it, because in the beginning Coulson was dead, and Barton was _messed up_. And maybe they were just close and Barton just felt guilty for leading the assault that led to Coulson’s death- but that didn’t explain all the things that had happened every time Tony threw them together since then. They were _married_. They were the two most married people in the world.  

Unfortunately- or, maybe fortunately, given how things eventually turned out- that was when Coulson and Bruce walked into the kitchen.

“Phil,” Barton said, all bluster, and that was really taking the ruse too far. “You’ll never guess what Tony thought.” And there was a weird strainedness behind Barton’s eyes as he said it.

“He thought we were a couple,” Coulson said, tiredly. Bruce did his ‘I am not here’ thing and was gone even though he didn’t move. Tony had never been very good at the ‘I am not here’ thing except with his dad, but in that moment it seemed to be working for him because suddenly Barton was looking at Coulson like he was the only other person in the room.

The strainedness was still there, behind Barton’s eyes. He licked his lips. “Where do you think he got that idea?” he asked, still trying to make light of the situation, even though it was pretty clear that these were the most un-light words he’d ever spoken.

What?

Coulson sighed, deeply, and sat down at the table across from Barton. “Where do you think he wouldn’t?” he asked, instead of answering.

_What?_

“We’re… friends,” Barton tried. It sounded weak. It sounded like a question.

“Friends who are married,” Coulson put to him, like it was his particular cross to bear.

“It’s actually not all that unusual-”

“Barton,” Coulson snapped, startling everyone- even Bruce, who was there again and looking highly uncomfortable for a moment before he vanished anew. “When the trouble blows over, SHIELD dissolved the marriages. You were given the paperwork to do so.”

“I didn’t sign it.”

“I know,” Coulson said, like _that_ was his particular cross to bear.

“You didn’t make me sign it.”

“ _No_ ,” Coulson said, weighting it heavily. “Obviously you convinced yourself that being married was just going to be another thing we did.” Tony noticed a particularly acidic note in the words ‘another thing we did.’ What things they did? Tony wondered. Things like feeding each other bites of each other’s dessert? Cuddling? Cooking breakfast together? Because if they _weren’t_ a couple and he was Coulson, that would piss Tony off too. “But there was a while there that I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?” Barton asked, faintly.

“That it was a signal! That I couldn’t say I-” Coulson bit his lip. “There are rules about handlers instigating such things, but I wanted you to know that- that- that the door was open.” He’d been staring at the tabletop like the wood grain held the secrets of the universe, but he finally looked up at Barton, his face open in a way Tony had never seen it before.

Barton met his eyes and made this weird whining sound, and Tony hardly saw him move before he was stretching over the table and they crashed together like two waves in the sea. Tony thought about saying something, but decided not to because- still kissing him- Coulson steered Barton off the table and at least they were headed toward the elevator. But he promptly regretted the inaction because they were pawing at each other’s clothes before they got there, because undressing in private was for people who didn’t want it enough, and Coulson’s tie came off, which was a level of indecency for which Tony’s life of debauchery had in no way prepared him. He averted his eyes.

When they were finally on the elevator, Tony addressed Bruce. “So they really weren’t together before?”

Bruce shrugged, like he’d never had a stake in the business at all.

“They were,” Romanov said. “They just didn’t realize it.” Tony started powerfully, because he’d had no idea she was there to begin with. Seriously, when had she-

“How do you do that?” he demanded, when he could breathe.

She didn’t answer. She just looked faintly smug.

“Wait,” he said. “So you knew they weren’t… you know?”

“Of course I knew.”       

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“Because they are now.”

*   *   *

It wasn’t until much later that Tony worked out that all of this meant that the Black Widow had given him tacit permission to matchmake her friends, and it had worked. And that, Tony thought, was awesome. And Tony was awesome too.

He made sure to tell Pepper as much at every opportunity.    


End file.
